Budget Committee

The Executive Council’s Joint Budget Committee presented a balanced triennial budget to the Executive Council at its January 2024 meeting. Formulation of the balanced budget resulted from open, realistic, and transparent discussions with the DFMS Executive Leadership Team and from comments obtained during several public hearings and submitted in writing. The Executive Council approved the balanced budget at its January meeting and has submitted the balanced triennial budget to the General Convention for its consideration and approval at General Convention.

Under the new canons, rules, and bylaws that now govern the budgetary process (resulting from the passage of Resolution A048 at the 80th General Convention), the final budget must be presented to and approved by the Executive Council at its January 2024 meeting. At that point the budget will be locked until it is presented on the floor of the General Convention in June 2024 for consideration and adoption.

The proposed balanced triennial budget for 2025-2027 is available at the link below under “Proposed Budget”.

A Budget Narrative for the 2025-2027 balanced Budget is available here.

The Joint Budget Committee has also made available budget expenditure actuals for 2020, 2021, 2022 and year to date for 2023 at this link.

Two public hearings on the Budget will be convened prior to consideration of the Budget at General Convention. These will be listening sessions only to be conducted by the Executive Council Joint Budget Committee, who is the designated body to conduct these hearings. For further information, please see the section on “Open Hearing Registration”.

Two public hearing sessions will be convened prior to presentation of the 2025-2027 Triennial Budget at the General Convention. You are invited to these open hearing sessions that will be held:

Thursday, May 16, 2024 at 4:00 PM ET by Zoom

Saturday, June 22, 2024 at 11:00 AM ET at the General Convention (hearing room to be announced at a later time).

Register Here (May 16)

In our listening sessions with you, you asked us for actuals of previous year’s budgets.
Attached are the actuals for 2020, 2021, 2022 and year to date for 2023. They are
presented to you in a separate document than the 2025-2027 budget. We feel it is
easier to present it in this way than to incorporate all these years into the next triennial
budget. We hope that this new data helps to answer your questions about previous
years’ income and expenses. If you have additional questions or suggestions, please do
not hesitate to contact us and/or attend our listening sessions (December 9th at 2pm
eastern and December 12th at 7pm eastern).

We also want to let you know that the Executive Leadership Team has asked the Joint
Budget Committee to not implement their previous request to have Episcopal Relief
and Development contribute to the triennial budget. You will remember that the
original ask of 1.5 million was reduced to $450,000 after the effects of reducing DFMS
staffing by 5% were factored into the triennial budget. If accepted, there will be no
request of financial support from Episcopal Relief and Development to the 2025-2027
budget. Again, if you have additional comments or questions about this you can
contact us directly or attend the listening sessions mentioned above.

The Joint Budget Committee is very grateful for your continued participation in the
development of the 2025-2027 budget.

The Executive Council’s Joint Budget Committee met October 4-6, 2023, to create a working budget for the 2025-2027 triennium. The Joint Budget Committee will be presenting a working budget to the Executive Council at its meeting October 24-27, 2023. The working budget will be made available to the general public following that meeting at this link.

The Budget Narrative for the 2025-2027 Budget is available here.

The working budget is predicated on the following assumptions:

• Diocesan assessment will remain at the current level of 15%
• Growth in the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society (DFMS) investments would be 10% for 2023, 7.5% in 2024 and 2025
• The Episcopal Church will draw no more that 5% on a rolling average from the past 5 years of the income derived from its unrestricted reserves

Formulation of the working budget resulted from open, realistic, and transparent discussions with the DFMS Executive Leadership Team. When it was evident that the starting point budget exceeded expected income, the committee asked the leadership team to offer reductions to its budget, but only to the extent that the team can still accomplish the mission of The Episcopal Church. After reviewing the proposed working budget from the leadership team, the budget committee worked with the team at its October meeting to craft the working budget. The working budget will be made available at the end of October 2023.

It is crucial that the Joint Budget Committee receives input from the public from the beginning of November 2023 to January 2024 on the working budget, prior to the budget’s presentation to the Executive Council in January 2024. Under the new canons, rules, and bylaws that now govern the budgetary process (resulting from the passage of Resolution A048 at the last General Convention), the final budget must be presented to and approved by the Executive Council at its January 2024 meeting. At that point the budget will be locked until it is presented on the floor of General Convention in June 2024 for discussion and adoption.

The Joint Budget Committee invites The Episcopal Church to participate in open hearings that will be held in November and December 2023. During those hearings, the church community will have the opportunity to testify on the budget, as well as highlight any potential funding requests that might arise from upcoming resolutions to the 81st General Convention. This will allow the committee to take those requests into consideration when crafting the final budget that will be presented to the Executive Council and the General Convention. These open hearings will be held via Zoom on:

• November 9 at 7:00 PM ET
• December 9 at 2:00 PM ET
• December 12 at 7:00 PM ET

In addition, at 4:00 PM ET on Monday, November 20, the budget committee will hold a Zoom session with the Executive Council. The public is invited to observe the session on YouTube,  but will not be able to participate.

This will be the only opportunity that the church will have to offer input on the budget before it is finalized and presented to the Executive Council and thereafter to the General Convention. It is crucial that the committee hears from the church at this time. Additionally, the committee will hold canonically required hearings on the budget on May 16, 2024, and at General Convention.

Please see the announcement on the open hearings and sign up to speak or to listen to the discussions. We look forward to listening to the will of the church and to where we are called in our mission and use of our resources.

1/12/24: Episcopal Church Executive Council to meet Jan. 26-29

6/26/23: Executive Council to meet June 30 to discuss budget income

6/8/23: Joint Budget Committee offers June 20 listening session on income

3/8/23: Joint Budget Committee offers April 17 listening session

2/11/23: Joint Budget Committee shares update on 2025-2027 budget process